Love in the Fast Lane
by Icy-Silence
Summary: Lies, cheating, death. It all lurks on the streets of Los Angeles. Raye is a street racer who wants nothing more than to be the best. Her only competition is the handsome Jedite. What is he hiding, and will it tear Raye away from her friends forever?
1. Chapter : 1

Love in the Fast Lane  
  
The heat of a humid night settles down on a deserted highway in Los Angeles as Raye Williams pumps up the volume of her car stereo with the song "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park, blaring out of the oversized speakers stashed in her trunk. She closes her eyes as passers-by watch her brush her long, black hair. She gets out of her blood red Jaguar XK Series XK8 4.2L 2 Door Convertible and shuts the door, leaning up against it.  
  
"Hey Ray Ray are you ready for your heat? I think Ami said it starts at 10:00P.M. which is in about fifteen minutes." Her best friend Hotaru tells her, climbing out from under the hood.  
  
"Everything looking alright from under there? "Raye asks, walking in front of her car just to make sure.  
  
"All you need is an oil change but other than that it's all good. You'll be alright for this race." Hotaru answers. Wiping the grease on her hands onto her mechanic jumper.  
  
"We can do that tomorrow when we go and get my new car. Anyways, down to business, who is in the line-up for tonight?" Raye asks, sitting on the hood of he car and crossing her long, tanned legs over one another.  
  
"That would be Andrew Johnson, Seiya Anderson and... oh my." A rather tall woman with short but stylish blue hair and eyes answers, looking down at her clipboard.  
  
Raye turns to her and raises an eyebrow. "Ami, who or what is 'Oh my'? "she asks, rather impatiently.  
  
"Well, it seems that you are racing against Jedite Davis as well." She tells Raye, looking up to her with a somewhat puzzled expression on her face.  
  
In a matter of seconds, Raye gets up and walks over to her. "What?!" she yells, grabbing the clipboard from her friend and flipping through the many papers on it to the racing line-up.  
  
Hotaru walks over to her, looking at the list as well as Raye turns to her. "This has to be a mistake! I cannot race Jedite! He isn't even in my circuit!" she shouts, dropping the clipboard onto the ground.  
  
"Maybe he wants to test you or something. I mean you have been heating the circuit up lately. Maybe he wants to see how good you really are. "Ami tells her, picking up her clipboard.  
  
Raye walks over to her car and opens the door, sitting down and slamming the door shut. "I'll show him... "She says quietly, looking out her window to them.  
  
She waits for Hotaru to remove her mechanic jumpsuit, revealing a black mini-skirt and a black halter-top, until she starts up her car, revving it up until her trademark red sparks come out of the tailpipe of her car. Hotaru walks over and smiles to her.  
  
"You're gonna do great. Good Luck out there. " Hotaru tells her tapping the hood of her car and walking back over to her own black 2003 Acura RSX Type- S 6-Speed MT w/ leather 2.0L 2 Door coupe and getting in, just as Ami walks over to Raye's car and wishes her good luck.  
  
After talking to them for about 2 more minutes, Raye drives off to the starting line, where Andrew and Seiya are already waiting.  
  
'Mr. King Jedite probably wants to make a grand entrance, just to intimidate the rest of us. 'She thinks, blasting her radio as loud as it will go as Linkin Park's 'Crawling' comes on. The three eager racers wait patiently for about 10 more minutes, occasionally revving up their engines until sparks fly from their tailpipes, before Raye leans out of her car and shouts to the announcer.  
  
"Is he gonna come?"  
  
The announcer looks to her with a worried expression on his face and shrugs, unsure of whether Jedite was going to show or not. After about two more minutes, they hear the faint rumble of an engine as it gets louder and louder, announcing Jedite's arrival. He pulls up beside Raye in his 2003 BMW M-3 3.2L 2 Door convertible and winks at her, giving her his signature smile. She rolls her eyes and revs her engine, trying to act disgusted as her heart pounds like a war drum inside of her chest. Why did it have to be the snottiest racer in the world that she felt this way for? She ponders that thought for a moment as she watches the starting lights change color.  
  
Red. Yellow. Green.  
  
The sounds of screeching tires could have been heard three counties away as the four racers put their pedals to the metal. At the start of the race, Seiya and Andrew quickly fell behind, leaving it up to Jedite and Raye to actually race. Raye can hear the cheers from the audience as Jedite pulls a few feet in front of her.  
  
'I do not think so; there is no way he's going to win this one.' She thinks, her finger gently brushing up against the little red button on her steering wheel. She bites her lip, pondering whether to push it or not.  
  
'Oh, what the hell. You only live once.' She tells herself as she presses the button down, releasing NOS into her car's engine system.  
  
The burst of speed pushed her speedometer to two hundred and counting, making her pass Jedite in a matter of short seconds. She looks back at him, seeing the look of utter shock and disappointment upon his face. And a few seconds later, she passes the finish line, slamming her foot onto the brake pedal, causing her car to do a big doughnut before it stops. Raye clutches her steering wheel, pretty shocked at what had just happened. She turns down her radio and opens her car door, placing her feet firmly on the ground before completely standing up.  
  
She had beaten Jedite, Mr. Snotty King of Racers.  
  
So why was she not happy?  
  
The next few moments went by in a blur for Raye as the crowd massed around her. Making her way through the many people to the edge of her celebrating circle of friends, she walks over to Jedite.  
  
"Hey." He says quietly, looking up at her with sadness in his eyes.  
  
Her heart melted as she looked back into his deep blue eyes. "Hey... you alright?"  
  
He nods, leaning up against his car. "Congratulations..." he tells her, looking down to the ground.  
  
She follows his gaze and frowns a bit. This was not the way they were supposed to be. He was supposed to sweep her out from under her feet, into his arms and kiss her for winning.  
  
'You need to stop reading romance novels' she reminds herself as she walks closer to him.  
  
"Jedite, I- I'm so sorry... I was just caught up in the moment. I should have let you win." She says, looking up to meet his eyes.  
  
He looks up to her.  
  
"No, I wouldn't have wanted you to let me win. I will beat you one day...fair and square. For right now, the better racer won." He tells her, embracing her in a hug.  
  
Raye can feel her heart about to burst from her chest as she hugs him back, her hands trembling like jelly. He pulls away from her and kisses her cheek, smiling at her with that goddamn smile!  
  
"Keep up the great racing...I like a challenge." Jedite smiles and winks as he climbs back into his car, cranking it up and driving off.  
  
Raye stands there dumbfounded just touching her cheek.  
  
'Oh my gosh. Jedite kissed me...' she thinks as she turns to be hugged rather tightly by Ami and Hotaru who had obviously been thrilled at her winning.  
  
Still taken aback, she smiles and looks at them both.  
  
"Well... I won."  
  
"We know you won! You beat Jedite!" Hotaru squeals as she releases her from a hug.  
  
Raye smiles sadly and looks back to the crowd that is now dispersing from around her car.  
  
"Well I better get going; I want to collect my winnings tonight before I head home." Raye stated, heading over to her car and opening the door. She sits in the seat and waves to Ami and Hotaru before cranking up her Red Jaguar and driving off to the circuit pay office. Well not exactly a pay office, it was an abandoned warehouse that the circuit had bought to hold all of the money for each race.  
  
She pulled up into the parking lot and got out of her car, making sure to lock it before going inside.  
  
"Hello?" she called into the dimly lit room filled with filing cabinets and shelves with stacks of papers everywhere.  
  
A rustling noise from the room in back greeted her as her friend Chad came out.  
  
"Hey, we don't want your kind here." He laughed, crossing his arms.  
  
"Well I'm not a prostitute you asshole." She retorted, shoving him playfully. "I'm here for my money."  
  
He quirked an eyebrow at her "What money? Who did you race?" he asked, rather surprised.  
  
"Oh, nobody, just Jedite." Raye said, sitting up on his desk, crossing her long, tan legs over one another.  
  
"Get out, you're for real?" he asked, trying to keep calm now that this woman who he had it bad for for years was sitting like that on his desk.  
  
She laughed and nodded. "Yeah, I was shocked too, but I believe that the winnings for that race tonight were...10,000?"  
  
Chad nodded, trying to keep his eyes off those goddamn legs of hers.  
  
"Yeah, lemme go get you your cash." He told her, heading into the back again.  
  
She smiled evilly; she knew what he was looking at that whole time. That was precisely why she had sat like that in the first place. Before he came back out, she got up and walked to his chair, propping her feet up on the desk.  
  
"Here you-"Chad paused, seeing her sitting there like that just completely stopped his heart. "go." He whimpered. God why was he so damn helpless around her? She drove him crazy and gave him many rather perverted ideas.  
  
She smiled and got out of his chair, taking her cash from him and heading toward the door.  
  
"Thanks hon." She winked at him as she walked outside to her car, squealing the tires as she pulled away. 


	2. Chapter: 2

Love in the Fast Lane  
  
The sunlight poured into Raye's bedroom and shone directly into her eyes. She groaned and turned over, trying to go back to sleep. A few seconds later, her cell phone rang. "God dammit! Can't anyone sleep around here?!" she shouted, getting up and answering it.  
  
"Hello?!" she said rudely.  
  
"Hello, this is Doctor Myers down at Los Angeles Medical Center; we have two patients in our custody. One by the Name of Ami Mizuno and the other Hotaru Tomoe." The voice said.  
  
'Oh my God...' Raye thought as she spoke. "Is there something wrong?" she asked worriedly.  
  
A pause was heard on the line.  
  
"Well we need you to come down here so we can talk to you. Let's just say there was an accident last night and your friends are severely injured."  
  
Raye opened her closet, digging immediately for something to wear.  
  
"Okay I'll be there in fifteen minutes." She told the doctor before hanging up.  
  
All sorts of thoughts were running through her head as she pulled on a black tank top and a pair of black jeans with chains on the side. She grabbed her keys and ran out the door to her car, speeding off towards the hospital as fast as she could.  
  
When she arrived, doctors were everywhere, running around talking about the 'bad accident' the previous night. She went up to the front desk.  
  
"Excuse me I'm here to see Doctor Myers...can you tell me where to find him?" she asked the large blonde nurse sitting at the desk.  
  
"May I ask your reason?" the nurse asked.  
  
"I'm here about the accident last night..." Raye explained, trying to remain calm.  
  
"Are you a direct relative of the patients in question?"  
  
All right, this was pissing her off. "Look lady, I just want to know what happened to my friends now let me go back there and find him or you will have hell to pay." Raye sneered, getting up in the woman's face.  
  
"Alright, go back, room 145." The nurse said shakily, pressing the button to unlock the door.  
  
'God damn nurses trying to start shit when my friends are in the hospital.' Raye thought, walking quickly around the hallways, looking for room 145. When she found it, she opened it quickly and saw Hotaru laying there, a huge cast on her left arm and a bandage around the top of her head and her neck. Ami was right beside her, completely knocked out with bloody bandages all over her body. She thought her heart was going to stop when she saw them lying there.  
  
"Oh my gods, Hotaru are you alright?" she asked, running to her bed and kneeling down beside it.  
  
Hotaru forced a weak smile. "Yeah, I'm fine, just a few bullet wounds by my neck and in my arm. But Ami got it from all sides. They showed up out of nowhere Raye. There was a whole gang of them. They just shot and shot, Ami tried to protect me and look what happened." She explained weakly, pausing a few times so she did not strain herself.  
  
Raye's eyes filled with tears up and she put her head down. "Why would someone do this?" she cried quietly, holding Hotaru's hand.  
  
A few minutes later, a doctor whom Raye found out was Doctor Myers came in and spoke to her. He told her that Ami would probably not make it through the night, but that Hotaru was lucky and she would probably live through the terrible ordeal. The thought of losing Ami or Hotaru was too much for her; she began crying and left the room, wondering where she would go and what she was going to do without either one of them.  
  
She wandered back to the waiting room and sat down, holding her head in her hands as she cried. Then, a familiar voice filled her ears.  
  
"Hey Raye...Are you alright?" the masculine voice asked.  
  
Raye looked up to see Jedite standing there. She stood up and hugged him. "Jedite, I can't take this...what am I going to do if Ami dies?" she cried.  
  
His face showed concern but at the same time, a form of guilt that Raye could not see. "It'll be alright. Whoever did this will pay dearly for making you three suffer like this."  
  
Raye felt comforted by his arms around her and she hung on to him, as if trying to protect him since she could not protect Ami and Hotaru.  
  
'I swear to god, if Ami and Hotaru get out of here alive, I will never let anything happen to them.' She thought as she released Jedite from her hug.  
  
Jedite smiled at her sympathetically before sitting down with her. "They'll be alright." He assures her, taking her hand into his.  
  
'Why did I make that deal?' he thought to himself as he felt Raye lay her head on his shoulder. A huge pang of guilt pounded in his chest as he sat with her, trying to think of something to say to comfort her. "Raye, they'll be alright... they're strong." He said quietly, moving his shoulder for her to look at him. Her deep violet eyes were filled with tears and sorrow as she raised them to meet his blue ones.  
  
"You say that like they just got a few cuts and bruises....but Jedite they got shot multiple times...both of them. You just don't get it do you? We have known each other for years...I grew up with them. We're closer than sisters and this is my entire fault." Raye cried, burying her head in her hands once again.  
  
Jedite placed a hand on her back and spoke softly, "Raye this isn't your fault. I do not care who else you blame it on, just don't blame yourself. You just need to get your mind off of what happened and focus your strength on something else." He paused for a moment before looking to her once again. "Come out with me tonight, just to keep your mind off of it." He offered as she looked up to him.  
  
"But, what about them?" she asked shakily.  
  
"They'll understand....I promise. Just come out with me, we'll go to dinner and then I can take you home."  
  
She looked down for a moment as if contemplating the thought in her mind. "Well, as long as we only go to dinner and then you take me home, It'll be alright...but can you do me a favor?" she asked him.  
  
"Anything."  
  
She looked down sheepishly and spoke. "Could you bring me here instead of to my house? I want to be with Ami if..."  
  
"Of course. I'll bring you here after dinner and I'll wait with you, I don't want you getting too stressed out over this, I mean, I understand how you must be feeling but I want to make sure nothing happens to you." He said with sympathy as he stood up and offered her his hand. "Come on, I'll take you home so you can change if you want." 


End file.
